What's in the box?

medium share (it was dark when I took the picture, weird lighting!)

Winter Squash - Delicata, Sweet Dumpling, Acorn
onions
potatoes
peppers
garlic
curly kale
leeks - medium and large
hakuri turnips - small
scarlet turnips - medium and large
cauliflower - medium
parsley - medium
green storage cabbage (a few small shares got savoy cabbage)

Notes on the box.

Winter Squash do not need to be refrigereated. All the varities in the box this week have edible rinds, though the acorn squash rind may be a little tough.

The leeks were mostly swallowed by weeds this season. Sorry for the small harvest of them!

The turnips will store longer with the tops removed. The greens and the roots are edible.

The cabbage is a storage cabbage. It is really wonderful for making saurkraut or other kimchi. Or you can make soup or roast it. Or you can let it roll to the back of your fridge where it will keep for a few months!

If you find yourself with peppers rolling around in your crisper, you can dice them up, put them in a freezer bag and freeze them. They are good in soups and such later on. Or you can roast them and then freeze them.

Cheese Shares.

This week we have Antares, the cow milk manchego. Some of the wheels got rubbed with olive oil, safflower, calendula, and chamomile flowers. Others didn't get the rub on the rind. Both are really nice and have an edible rind. This cheese has been one of our most popular at market so far. It pairs well with sweet flavors like grapes, but also goes well with olives and nuts. It's very herbal and has some sharpness especially if you eat the rind. The wheels with the rub have fruity and floral flavors which aren't as pronounced as the wheels without.

Recipes.

Caldo Verde

1/4cup olive oil
12 ounces chorizo sausage, cut into 1/2-inch pieces
1 onion, chopped fine
4 garlic cloves, minced
Salt and pepper
1/4 tsp red pepper flakes
2 pounds potatoes (red or yellow), peeled and cut into 3/4-inch pieces
4 cups chicken broth
4 cups water
1 pound hearty greens of your choice (kale, collards, or cabbage), stemmed and cut into 1-inch pieces
2 teaspoons white wine vinegar

1. Heat 1 tablespoon oil in Dutch oven over medium-high heat until shimmering. Add chorizo and cook, stirring occasionally, until lightly browned, 4 to 5 minutes. Transfer chorizo to bowl and set aside. Reduce heat to medium and add onion, garlic, 1 1/4 teaspoons salt, and pepper flakes and season with pepper to taste. Cook, stirring frequently, until onion is translucent, 2 to 3 minutes. Add potatoes, broth, and water; increase heat to high and bring to boil. Reduce heat to medium-low and simmer, uncovered, until potatoes are just tender, 8 to 10 minutes.

2. Transfer 3/4 cup solids and 3/4 cup broth to blender (or use an immersion blender to blend potatoes and broth until thickened). Add collard greens to pot and simmer for 10 minutes. Stir in chorizo and continue to simmer until greens are tender, 8 to 10 minutes longer.

3. Add remaining 3 tablespoons oil to soup in blender and process until very smooth and homogeneous, about 1 minute. Remove pot from heat and stir pureed soup mixture and vinegar into soup. Season with salt and pepper to taste, and serve.

Bell Pepper Salad

3 bell peppers, any colors, thinly sliced
1/2 onion, quartered and thinly sliced
several salad or scarlet turnips, thinly sliced and halved
turnip greens, chopped (optional)

whisk together dressing:

4 Tbsp olive oil
1 Tbsp balsamic vinegar
1 Tbsp apple cider or red wine vinegar
1/2 Tbsp stone ground or dijon mustard
salt and pepper to taste

mix dressing and veggies together and allow a few minutes for flavors to come together

Cauliflower and Roasted Red Pepper Soup with Goat Cheese

Smokey Balsamic Red Pepper Compote with fried eggs

Cabbage and Mushroom Galette with Horseradish Sauce

On the Farm.

It's raining again! This has been by far the wettest August and September that we have ever experienced while farming. These are normally the driest months, making harvest a lot easier than it's been. It's also caused the quality of certain crops to be not as great as usual. And the warmer weather is good for the growth of some crops, but others prefer cooler temps to size up or sweeten up. Weird weather, but we are doing our best to cull out the bad produce and give you only the best of what we have.

The Harvest Party is this weekend! We will have pumpkins to bring home, cheese for tasting, pulled pork, farm tours, and a bonfire when it gets dark. We will also have some sun art paper for a little art project and plenty of tractors to climb on and a big sand pile, too. The forecast is looking beautiful and clear. Hopefully this one won't end with a sudden thunder storm as the last few harvest parties have! We will start the fun around 4 PM and eating around 6 PM. We ask that you bring a side or dessert to share and you can bring your own favorite beverage. Kids and guests are welcome, so feel free to bring your friends. Unfortunately, our dogs don't like other dogs. Sorry! No pets, please. Let us know if you are planning on coming and how many people you'll be bringing.

Please let us know if you have any questions. For directions, you can search google maps for Turnip Rock Farm and we show up! Remember that weekend traffic in Stillwater can be pretty bad, so you may want to take 94 over the river.

We want to say a big Thank You to our Peak Season members. This is the last box of the peak season. We hope that you have enjoyed your CSA experience with us! We will let you know when we open sign-ups for next season, or you may sign up for our Winter Share, information is below.

If anyone wants to sign up for our season extention, please go ahead and sign up for a Winter Share. It's listed as a Winter Share, but it's really more of a Fall share that extends the regular season for 4 more weeks after the last delivery of the regular season goes out. Our Eat Like A Farmer members are already included, but we have space for others that would like to get 4 more deliveries of storage veggies, frost sweetened greens, and other Autumn treats. We only offer one share size for this option, so you may want to find a friend to split with if you have a smaller household. You can check out last seasons blog posts to get an idea of what you may get in your Winter Share. We have also added the option to add on eggs and cheese along with the veggies. Contact us if you have any trouble with the sign up or any questions.

a beautiful bounty of bell peppers

way to pick up some squash!

Haley and the cauliflower

It is officially Autumn! A nice warm start to it. Dana, Ben, and Sam gathered apples from the wild apple trees that we have on the farm and pressed cider. Photos by Dana.

cleaning up the barn from the onions and garlic curing

the sheep found some burrs!

Wild grapes

ben and the apple tree

wild apples

farm love!

What's in the box?

medium share

sweet corn!
sweet onions
bell peppers (red for "eat like a farmer" shares)
cucumbers
zucchini / summer squash
new potatoes
broccoli
eggplant (large and medium)
celery
green beans (large and medium)
heirloom tomatoes / tomatoes
hot peppers (jalapeno and hungarian hot wax)

garlic for "eat like a farmer" shares

Notes on the box.

Hope you brought your muscles... This is a heavy box!

If you can't eat your sweet corn right away, store it in the fridge. Each day that passes makes it less sweet, so keep that in mind with your meal planning. To freeze corn, I like to cut it off the cob, put it in a bag, and freeze it. We don't bother with blanching.

Sweet onions are uncured and are best stored in the fridge. Good for frying, enjoying fresh in salads or burgers, or making into carmelized onions.

New potatoes are unwashed because the skin is very thin and tender and was getting peeled off just from our sprayer during washing. You are able to much gentler washing them at home.

Eggplant is another veggie that is best when eaten fresh. Bitterness develops as it is stored. This is a nice small variety that holds its shape well through cooking. Great for stir fries and curries. Or see the recipe below for roasted veggies which is my new weekly plan of attack for easy instant meals.

I was just reading a bit about storing some of these summer veggies. It seems that most (including cucumbers, eggplant, and summer squash) store the very best in a paper bag at warm refrigeration temperature or 45-55 F. So if you have a cool basement or a wine chiller, that may be the best place to store these veggies! I store them all in the crisper or the warmest part of the fridge.

The hot peppers are pretty dang spicy. Carefully remove the seeds unless you have a high heat tolerance. The Hungarian Hot Wax are the long tapered ones. Most are yellow, but there are a few red and orange ones out there. Don't take a big chomp out of them or you might be hurting! They aren't sweet peppers!

Cheese Shares.

This week is a recipe that I'm working on for our own original cheese. It is quite a tasty snacking cheese and also great for a grilled cheese sandwich. It is yet unnamed, but we are thinking Perseid in honor of the meteor shower we have been enjoying at night. A midnight snack of cheese and some stargazing? Can't think of many better things to do!

You know how sometimes the cheese or butter your see in the store is bright yellow or orange? This is usually from added coloring like annatto. It's trying to evoke what this cheese naturally has. The intense yellow color of our cheese is because of the cows' 100% grass diet (this is different than dairy marketed as "pasture raised"). The cows give less milk eating all grass than they would if we were feeding them grain, but the milk and cheese is much better for us with high Omega 3s, healthy fats, and Vitamin K. Here's an article that elaborates on these points. I hope that you are enjoying the beauty and deliciousness that comes from our beautiful cows' milk!

Recipes.

Roasted Everything

Cut zucchini, summer squash, eggplant, onions, and bell peppers into slices. Spread sliced veggies into a rimmed baking pan. Drizzle with olive oil and sprinkle with salt and pepper. Toss gently to make sure all the veggies are coated in oil. Roast in 450 degree oven for 10 min. Remove from oven, flip veggies with a spatula and roast for 5- 10 more minutes until veggies are roasted to your liking. Use these veggies to toss into cooked pasta, top a sandwich, have as a side dish, top a pizza, or any other thing you can dream up. Great thing to do to have veggies on hand for quick meals.

Simple Potato Salad

Bring a pot of salted water to a boil. Wash and large dice your potatoes then add to the boiling water. While potatoes are cooking, finely chop celery and sweet onion. Mix a few big spoonfuls of mayo, a little vinegar, salt and pepper in a large bowl. Add celery and sweet onion. Drain potatoes when they are tender but not mushy. Mix cooled potatoes into dressing and veggies. Chill or eat at room temperature. The wonderful thing about really fresh veggies is that they don't need much dressing up. The flavor of the veggies themselves is so great that you can keep it really simple.

Zucchini or Summer Squash Cinnamon Pancakes

Veggies for breakfast! In a medium bowl, whisk together 2 eggs, 1 tsp. cinnamon, and a pinch of salt. Stir in 2 cups shredded zucchini/ summer squash. Drop batter by the spoonful onto a hot greased griddle. Cook for about 3 min or until centers start to firm up. Flip the cakes over and cook for another 2 min or until the pancakes spring back when lightly pressed on top. Serve with butter and honey or syrup.

Zucchini Corn Fritters

2 cups flour
1 Tbsp. baking powder
1/2 tsp ground cumin
1/2 cup sugar
1/2 tsp salt
ground black pepper to taste
2 eggs, beaten
1 cup milk
1/4 cup butter, melted
2 cups grated zucchini or summer squash
1 1/2 cups corn kernels
1 cup shredded cheese
oil for frying

in a large bowl, stir together the flour, baking powder, cumin, sugar, salt, and pepper. In a small bowl, whisk together the eggs, milk, and butter. Whisk the wet ingredients into the dry ingredients. Stir in zucchini and corn and cheese. mix well.

Fill the bottom of a skillet with about 1/2 inch of oil. Fry in batches, adding more oil as needed until fritters are puffy, crisp and golden brown, turning once. Remove to drain on paper towels.

Sweet Corn and Pistachio IceCream

Sweet Corn and Coconut Milk Popsicles

Sweet Corn Polenta with Eggplant Sauce

Sweet Corn and Zucchini Pie (savory)

Cucumber Salsa

On the Farm.

We are super happy to have Josh's dad and Rama's mom and dad visiting right now from Missouri and Texas! Projects that we were unable to get to suddenly are getting done! Things are getting fixed and cleaned up, rye is being harvested, and the kids are having a ball. We really wished we all lived closer. Farming with family makes so much sense. Someday they will realize how much nicer Wisconsin is during the summer than Missouri or Texas and our dreams of intergenerational farming will come true!

Don't forget August 22 is a farm party here at Turnip Rock. We will be eating as much watermelon as we can handle, climbing on hay bales and tractors, you-pick cherry tomato all you can eat buffet, cows, calves, sheep, pigs, chickens, and lots of FUN! We will be grilling and we will have a potluck. There may be an optional work time before hand if we can get it set up in time. Come out starting at 3 and we will plan on eating at 5 or 6. Come see where your food is coming from and meet your farmers! We really love meeting our members and we hope to see you!

Next week... watermelons!